The desperation of Better Together

So yesterday a particularly nasty day on social media over #indyref . Labour accused First Minister Special Advisor Campbell Gunn, of orchestrating a hate campaign against Better Together supporter Clare Lally. How Labour can hold one man responsible, when they have no proof is to quote Johann Lamont, “Astonishing!” He certainly did make a mistake in speaking to the press and telling them she was related to Pat Lally, because that is simply not true.

He should have kept his mouth shut, BUT he didn’t attack her on Facebook, Twitter or any other media platform. Some people did and like any social media bully, they are pond life with nothing better to do than abuse those who are different in some way. However, this is not simply one incident, it is one incident in thousands that occur daily across the whole range of social media and a broad range of subjects. For the Better Together campaign to latch onto just one, brand it as anti-feminism and erroneously link it to the First Minister’s office, is a desperate attempt to smear that which they can’t debate.

It’s also worth pointing out that countless supporters of the YES campaign, myself included, have also had abuse thrown at us by supporters of Project Fear. I was accused of being a Nazi sympathiser by one BT supporter, a man who was a prominent figure in politics at one point and who now seems to spend much of his time trolling debate pages on Facebook. When the Better Together campaigners and their cohorts can say their support is perfectly behaved, then they can come and lecture us on social media protocol!